


it Kicks you in the Teeth

by Elie



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Bruce being a dad, Car Accidents, Dick gets his sweet mems back!! kinda!, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Gen, Head Injury, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Ill add more tags and characters as we go, Medical Inaccuracies, Memory Loss, NOT COMIC ACCURATE LIKE AT ALL, Ric Grayson Fix-It, The batfam being a fam, i guess??, i know nothing about medical stuff, ive been working on this for so long so now im posting it!, watch me go back and edit this a thousand times, yes im posting a multichap we'll see how this goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23969797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elie/pseuds/Elie
Summary: Bruce gets a call from the Blüdhaven hospital. Ric was in a car accident, three days ago.
Relationships: Bea Bennett/Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 25
Kudos: 151





	1. The Call

Bruce is walking towards the cave entrance hidden behind the old grandfather clock when the phone in his pocket rings and freezes him mid-step. A quick look on his screen tells him it's an unfamiliar number, though the many zeros inform him it might be some kind of corporation. He frowns, because only the people closest to him are supposed to have this number and those he has for sure saved in his contacts. 

“This is Bruce Wayne speaking,” he answers because he was raised to be polite, even when strangers call his private phone number, and they must have some reason after having gotten this exact number. It’s supposed to be private, and hidden from phone sellers after all. If not, his security really needs another throughout work over. Perhaps he can even ask Tim, make it a bonding session. 

“Hello, Mr. Wayne, I’m calling from Blüdhaven Central Hospital,” a female voice, a younger woman, going by the sound and badly concealed uncertainty, says.

Bruce feels his heart rate pick up as words he has feared hearing since Dick moved to that awful city fills his ears. All thoughts about Tim and security disappear. He almost misses the rest of what the woman is saying as worst-case scenarios take over his mind and the kind of panic he only ever gets over his children starts filling him. 

He manages to understand the most important info though. 

Richard was in an accident. Hit by a car, three days ago.

Three. Days. 

Three days has his son laid in a hospital bed with no one he knows around him. Completely alone. All while Bruce has been working. While he's been going out on patrol with Damian and had dinner with Tim. He even met Jason yesterday, for a brief cup of take-out coffee under the pretense of talking about suspects on a mafia murder case. 

When he questions why he wasn’t notified earlier, why no one thought to call Richard’s father as they brought him in, the nurse explains that his son arrived with no ID. No one had declared him missing, not before earlier today. They had no idea who he was, and Richard had been in no state to tell them. He’s been pretty much unconscious since he arrived, only awake for brief confused moments, and he still is in very much the same way. 

Three days and no one had declared him missing before today. God. It feels like all of Bruce’s failures concerning his children have built up to this moment. 

A sound catches his attention and he looks up to find Alfred standing in the doorway, one hand gripping the wooden door frame and looking alarmed. Bruce has no idea how much of the conversation the older man has heard, but he is in no doubt seeing the worry Bruce knows is showing in his face and deducting his own conclusions based on that. 

The nurse continues talking, not seeming to care if Bruce is actually listening or not, and he finds himself unable to catch all the information she is providing him with.

In the end, she tells him that they will call him right up if Richard’s condition changes. When Bruce hangs up, it is with a promise that he will be there as soon as possible, that there will be no need to call, and is met with a swift “goodbye” and a dial tone. 

“What has happened, sir?” Alfred asks. His voice is calm but Bruce knows better. When their eyes meet, he can see the turmoil in the man’s eyes. 

“Dick was hit by a car, three days ago. He’s in the hospital, in Blüdhaven. I have to go,” Bruce explains, already moving towards the front door and reaching for his coat. He pats the left pocket on it to make sure the keys to his preferred civilian car is there. He would like nothing more than to speed to Blüd in the fastest car he owns; the batmobile, but he can’t. 

This isn’t a vigilante problem, it’s not Batman’s partner Nightwing who’s been hurt, but Bruce’s very much civilian son. Richard, Dick, Ric, whatever he wants to call himself, and there is no room for Batman right now. 

“I will stay here and wait for master Damian’s return from school. Can I trust you to call everyone to let them know what’s going on?” Even if Alfred makes it sound like a question, Bruce knows it’s a command. The butler is all too familiar with how quick Bruce is to neglect other duties when dire situations come up, in fact, Bruce is pretty sure the older man knows all of his quirks and faults. 

One of them being how his one-sided focus has a habit of taking control when he's put under enough stress, especially when something has happened with one of his children. 

Alfred is of course right. Bruce will have to call the others and tell them Dick is in the hospital, he can’t deny that. As if the teens haven’t already been through enough pain and worry about their older brother.

And god. He’s going to have to call Barbara too.

-

Bruce feels exhausted before he even enters the hospital. He has spent the whole drive from Gotham to Blüdhaven calling his children and informing them of what's happened to Dick. The only word he can think of to describe the drive is draining. It feels like he has used up his emotion-quota for the day, maybe for the whole week, but he knows that there will be too much more once he enters the hospital.

The kids reacted with different levels of concern and anger, all of which Bruce had to be very careful about his responses too. He still feels like he messed up. He’s not sure he'll ever learn how to use the right words in the right situations when talking to them.

Tim had been finishing his day at WE when Bruce called him. He too had sounded afraid as Bruce explained, even if he was obviously trying to conceal his emotions. He had asked Tim to inform others who he thought should know, besides Jason, Barbara, and Damian, who Bruce didn’t have the heart to force Tim to deal with. 

Bruce had no idea what Jason had been doing when he called him, the boy hadn’t said. His second oldest hadn't said anything about if he would be visiting Dick either. Actually, he hadn't said much at all, not that that was anything else than expected. Jason had only told Bruce to make sure "Dickhead doesn't get himself killed again," before hanging up. 

Barbara had been the best at concealing her feelings when informed, even more so than Tim. Bruce assumed he could chalk it up to all her training, she's been at it for almost as long as Dick, and been through her fair share of grief. There had still been a wobble to her voice, of course, filled with a little uncertainty and a promise that she would join him in Blüd as soon as possible. Dick was one of her dearest friends after all, the two had once upon a time been as close as two peas in a pod. 

Damian had only returned to the manor minutes ago when Bruce called, which was the main reason the youngest was last on his call list. He hadn’t wanted to catch him off guard at school, with all his peers close around. Of course, Damian had already understood something was wrong by the look on Alfred’s face. The fear in his son's voice had been clear as day when Bruce had told him about the accident, before it had been replaced by anger when his youngest heard how much time had gone by since the accident and since Bruce was informed. The young boy had sworn his wrath on the whole of Blüdhaven it seemed before Bruce got around to hanging up. 

Some of them, most likely both Tim and Damian, would already be making their way to Blüdhaven now. Barbara might be on her way too, Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if she showed up together with the boys. They had a way of gathering together. 

Alfred, of course, would be arriving soon too. He’d have to drive Damian as Bruce had very precisely stated that the boy was not to grab his Robin cycle and travel alone to the neighbouring city. Perhaps Tim would be joining them, if he didn’t feel like driving alone. Plus, the teenager sometimes liked using public transport on his travels to and from work, so he might not have brought his car today. 

Even if Alfred didn't have to drive the boys, Bruce is sure the older man would come either way. Alfred raised Dick as much as Bruce did, he sees Dick as his grandson just like Bruce sees Dick as his son. Just as it was so many years ago, when the manor only ever hosted three, they’re all still family. 

Bruce has to show his ID and wait for seconds that feels much too long before the receptionists say it checks out that he’s in Dick’s list of emergency contacts, and it's only then that she calls on a nurse to lead him to where he’ll meet Dick's doctor and then see his son. 

The nurse and the doctor are going to inform him further on Richard’s condition, the receptionists explain when Bruce inquires about it as they wait. His voice might be too impatient for an adult billionaire, but he doesn't care. He needs to know if Dick will be alright, and he is not a very patient man when he doesn’t want to be. Instead of answering, she hands him a clipboard and has him fill out what’s missing of Dick’s information. 

To his surprise, there’s quite a lot already filled out; by whom, he has no idea. Maybe they found it online after they figured out who he is, but even that sounds a little sketchy. Bruce will have to check it out later, once he has the time to sit down. 

The nurse who arrives to meet him after agonizing minutes waiting as he quickly finished filling out the form, is a sweet young woman dressed in light blue. Her hair is tightened in a tight knot behind her head, and her smile is open and honest. Bruce feels relieved when she seems much more ready to answer his questions than the woman behind the counter, who they leave glaring at their backs. 

Bruce might not have accepted her answer about not being allowed to give patient info and pressed a little more than necessary, but he finds that he doesn’t care about it at all. 

This new nurse sounds like the one he spoke to on the phone, but he isn’t completely sure. His thoughts under the call had been too chaotic, and not calm enough to pick up every detail. All his usual detective abilities seem to have shortcutted the moment he heard about the accident. 

The nurse talks on and on as they walk through the white hallways with grey linoleum floors. She continues to do so as they take the elevator up five floors, and when they step out of it to continue down a new hall. He desperately tries to soak it all up, to file it away in his brain.

A doctor in a pristine white coat meets them on this new floor they’ve arrived at. She is looking at them through her round glasses with a clipboard in her hand.

"Mr. Wayne, I assume?" the doctor asks as she reaches out a hand towards Bruce. 

He nods as he shakes the doctor's hand, "Yes, I'm Richard's father." 

"It's nice to finally meet you, I’m happy that you managed to arrive here so fast after hearing. My name is Nicole Plantagenet and I'm your son's primary doctor. If you’ll follow me, I'll inform you further on Mr. Grayson's injuries." 

The nurse follows them as they continue down the new hallway, taking a left turn at a crossroad. The doctor talks the whole way there, and Bruce thinks his brain might soon get filled up with all they have to say about Dick. He again finds himself wondering how they know so much about Dick, and about his former.. condition. They can’t possibly have had the time to get the files from Gotham, he knows from experience how slow the paperwork is there.

He quickly turns into the conversation again as Plantagenet explains that his son's accident was very serious, but he had been lucky. Almost so that it was hard to believe, Plantagenet explains. The paramedics who arrived first at the scene had been very capable and done everything right. The medical team had seen the very prominent scar on the side of Richards' still almost bald head. It had given them some clues about possible recent head trauma, so they had been able to take extra precautions, which Bruce was relieved to hear about. It was one of the worries that had popped up in his head as he drove, and which Tim had inquired about when they spoke.

“It should relieve you to know that, even if his head took a hit and he’s got a concussion, we are not expecting any further trauma to the brain. The MRI we took shows no swelling or bleeding, but we’ll do another one once he wakes properly up just in case. He hasn’t been completely awake yet, so we can’t say for sure, but we have a very positive outlook for his recovery.”

There is a pit churning in Bruce’s stomach. Concussion. No further brain trauma. They think. They can’t even say for sure yet. Bruce doesn’t know if the family can do the whole ordeal over again. Worst-case scenarios are filling his head at an alarming rate again, and he has to work harder than usual to keep his cool.

The doctors continue listing injuries. Both Dick’s left arm and leg is broken from where the car hit. He’s also sustained scarring and burn marks from the impact with the ground, and his ribs have been badly bruised.

"Richard should be very thankful they weren’t smashed to pieces, or broken. They could have punctured his lungs," Plantagenet informs before continuing. They also had to fix some small internal bleeding, which was the reason he had to be operated on so shortly after arrival, she tells him. None of his organs had been permanently injured. Bruce files all the information into his brain for later, so he knows what to repeat when the kids ask. He’ll have to put it in Dick’s medical records in the cave at some point too. Maybe he can hack the hospital records, and copy paste some from there. 

The doctor and the nurse stop so sudden that Bruce walks a few more steps before realizing they've reached their destination, too lost in his own thoughts filled with worry. The nurse smiles a little amused at him as he retreats his steps. If he were a different man, he might’ve been infuriated by that, but there is no time to think about that now. 

They've come to a stop in front of a white door with the number 513 plastered in black writing on it.

“You ready to see him?” the doctor asks, studying him over her glasses. Bruce nods, feeling a longing to make sure that Dick is still breathing, still with them. 

The nurse opens the door for them and goes first inside. Bruce follows suit with the doctor behind him, his best brave-face on and trying to prepare himself for what he will see, even as fear creeps into his spine.


	2. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter: Bruce meets Bea, sits by Dick's bedside, being an angsty dad, and some more family finally arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again i just have to point out that I DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HOSPITALS OR MEDICAL PRACTICE i just want to write hurt/comfort

Dick looks too young and too pale in the hospital bed, big scary bandages covering parts of his body and angry red stitches over a scar just above his eyebrow. Bruce tries not to think about the last time he saw his son like this, the memory still too fresh even months later. Too raw. He can’t afford for those emotions to wallow up now when he’s already so compromised, feeling on the verge of breaking. 

A woman is sitting at Dick’s right side, her chair drawn up close to the bed. The doctor hadn’t mentioned anyone being there already, perhaps just a slip of mind so Bruce doesn’t even bother to try and hide his surprise.

The woman is holding Dick’s hand in her own. Bruce can’t help but frown, no one’s said anything about Ric having a girlfriend. He’s spent the last few weeks trying to fulfill his promise to Ric, aka “butting out” of his life, as the young man had so delicately phrased it. Which meant no stalking. 

It’s been hard, not doing that daily check-in on the man. Bruce had to force himself to refrain from going over surveillance cameras and bank records. No matter how much he found himself wishing to do those things, he’d made a promise. Remembering how much Dick had valued promises, and it had seemed like Ric was the same in that department, he’d been afraid to break it. 

Of course, Bruce’s broken promises before, not afraid to it if it was for the greater good. But in this case, it was his last chance at keeping a not-terrible connection to Ric. He’d been unwilling to sacrifice that at the time, so sure that if he continued he would absolutely slip up and let Ric know, or the man would figure it out some other way. 

Dick had grown quite the knack for being able to see through it when he lied, or when anyone lied really, and Ric hadn’t seemed to be much different. 

Now Bruce wishes he had broken the promise, and given in to his paranoid urges. It could have prevented his son from having to lay alone for three days in a white sterile hospital room. That kind Dick had always hated and wanted to leave as soon as possible, whenever he found himself in one. To hell with his relationship with Ric, at least his son would’ve been safe, and not alone. 

The girl gets up from the chair as he approaches, pushing some strands of curly hair behind her ear, and bringing him out of his thoughts. Assuming it’s the same girl who declared Dick missing he knows he should be thankful to her, grateful for her showing she cares, but all he feels is suspicious. He’s never been one for giving away trust easily. 

“You must be Bruce Wayne,” she says, her voice strong and confident, breaking the quickly growing awkward silence. There is something in her eyes, too much alike caution and dislike. Maybe they match what his own are looking like. Hers is a beautiful brown though and red-rimmed from crying, where he assumes his own eyes are still cold blue. 

He wonders how much Ric has told her about his former life, about this big family he has which he doesn’t remember, and if that’s the explanation for her open distaste of him. 

“Yes,” he stretches his hand out and she takes it, shaking it softly, “it’s nice to meet you..” his voice trails off. He has no idea what her name is. He should. Even if Dick doesn’t remember their history, and showed no interest or care for it, he’s still Bruce’s son. Father’s should know their son’s girlfriend's name.

“Bea,” she supplies as her hand falls back to her side. The nurse is frowning at them, perhaps confused over the situation. She must know Bea is Richard's girlfriend and Bruce his father, but it’s embarrassingly obvious that they haven’t met before. 

Bea bites her lip, which it looks like she’s done a lot lately judging by how red it’s looking. With eyes flickering back to Dick’s still form, it seems like she's contemplating something important.

“I’ll give you some time alone,” she decides after another small silence. Bruce nods as a thank you to her. Not knowing what to say as he watches the girl grab her bag and black coat from the chair, he just ends up trying for a smile that he fears looks more like a grimace. 

Bea goes to leave, even nods goodbye to the doctor and the nurse as she steps past Burce. Then the sound of her steps quiets instead of disappearing out the door. It makes Bruce turn on his heel to look at her. Their eyes lock. There is something fierce in her, an almost strict look, her eyebrows narrowed. 

It kind of reminds Bruce of Alfred. 

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours, I’ll see you then,” she says, before finally leaving.

It’s not just information about her coming and going, no, it’s much more than that. It’s a message to Bruce that says that he better be there when she comes back, better stay while she’s gone. Ric must have told her things, both good and bad, he figures, out of that response. 

He thinks he can grow to like this girl, she’s got spunk. 

As the door into the room clicks shut behind Bea, Bruce turns back to look at his son once again.

“He’s only asked for you when he’s been lucid enough to talk, nothing about the girl,” the doctor says, as she looks over some chart. Bruce suppresses the urge to rip it out of her hands so he can take a look at it himself. He has to use more power than he wants to admit to control himself. 

That Dick, Ric, has asked for him takes him by surprise, and is not what he had expected to hear at all. 

Ric hasn't given any impression of having strong feelings about his forgotten adoptive father, besides anger. In a disorienting turn of events, it’s been Bruce who’s been clamoring on to have a relationship with his eldest, with very little luck. Ric doesn’t have the same care for containing his anger as Dick used to. 

“We are taking him off some of the heavier drugs now, so he should be waking up more and more. It should make it easier for him to communicate too, we haven’t been able to understand anything else but “B” out of what he’s tried to say, and only because we’ve been trying to listen for it,”, the doctor explains to him. Her eyes turn sympathetic when Bruce is too slow to hide his pain. “Apparently he did speak more to the EMT though,” she quickly adds, as if it will help Bruce overcome his emotions. 

It feels like someone is squeezing Bruce’s heart with an iron claw. Ric has never, ever, called him B. Dick used to do it a lot, before, some of the other kids do too, both in and out of costume, but never Ric. 

“What.. what did he say to the EMT?” is all he can figure to ask, throat suddenly impossibly dry, his thoughts going a mile a minute in his head. Ric had asked for him, for B. 

“Uh -” the doctor says, flipping through her chater, seemingly looking for something. For a few seconds, a heavy silence falls over them, the only sound being the beeping from Dick’s monitors. 

“Here it says that the EMT had tried to calm him down, called him buddy, and he’d responded with “you know it’s chum, B.” in slurred speech, that’s all,” Plantagenet explains, looking up at Bruce with a sorry expression that quickly turns puzzled. Probably when she sees Bruce’s face.

His confusion, the pain that’s filling him, must show on his face. His heart rate has picked up, thundering in his ears and something is filling his veins like a warm liquid. He fears it’s hope, dangerous, potentially heartbreaking, hope. 

“He.. he said chum?” he manages to stutter out, his playboy bravado persona completely gone, not that there was much left the second he entered the hospital room. 

Both the nurse and the doctor stares at him in confusion for a second, before the doctor nods uncertainly. They aren’t able to hide that they find his reaction abnormal, but then again they can't possibly know how significant Ric’s words are. 

“Yes, chum - that’s what it says here, and our EMTs are very trustworthy people. Is there anything worrying about that?” the doctor questions, gripping the medical journal harder. Bruce can see how the skin tightens over her muscles, and her fingers turn a shade whiter. 

“As you mentioned, Richard sustained a very traumatic head injury before this, causing memory loss. He hasn’t, I haven’t.. the word chum hasn’t been in use since before,” he crawls painfully through his sentence. It feels wrong to tell a stranger something so personal, it goes against everything inside of him. Then again, the nurse and Dr. Plantagenet are the personnel tasked with his son's recovery. It would be foolish to keep vital information from them, a voice in his head says, sounding a lot like a certain butler. 

Understanding flashes in the doctor’s eyes.

“That.. can mean a lot of things, Mr. Wayne, which I am sure you have already thought about. I have to tell you, him asking for you might not mean he's gotten his memories back. In fact, I would advise you from getting your hopes up too high, or anyone else’s in your family. We still don’t know if this accident has affected his existing TBI, especially since we have yet to receive his medical records from Gotham Mercy to compare with.” 

Bruce nods and knows the doctor is right when she says he should keep his hope at bay, but still, there's that flicker of it slowly spreading through his body that he can't seem to stop. He'll keep it to himself though, he decides, he won't tell the kids once they come barging in. There is no way he can be responsible for putting them through being disappointed again if Dick were to wake up still not recognizing them, or maybe even haven forgotten everything all over. 

“Mr. Wayne, I can’t possibly know what has happened between you and Richard before, but I do feel obligated to tell you... He will need someone when he wakes up. He might experience major setbacks in an already slow recovery, especially considering how he’ll have problems moving around on his own,” she gestures to Dick’s broken leg. “It will be hard,” Dr. Plantagenet locks eyes with him again. 

Bruce feels like he is being scolded, and looking at the doctor, perhaps he is. He is about to tell the woman that no, she’s right, she can’t possibly know. It’s way out of her jurisdiction to imply that Bruce has done nothing less than care for his son. 

Snapping his mouth shut, he ends up saying nothing. 

It hits a little too close to home, even if Bruce wants to blame the papers for making him seem like a strict and emotionless man. There is some awful truth to what she’s implying. He dropped the ball with the whole Ric-situation, he’d thought it would be better to leave Ric alone. Had thought that perhaps, Ric would take the next step if Bruce just listened to what he asked and followed his requests to be left out of the family for the time being. Now Bruce is here, still with an estranged son who doesn't remember him, who's once again unconscious in a hospital bed. 

Bruce finds he is too tired for this. He is getting too old for seeing the people he loves, his own children, getting hurt over and over again. Small and broken in hospital beds, and in more pain than he ever thought they would have to experience. Perhaps naively, he had thought that at least in his current state, Ric would be safe from the usual horrors of their lives.

“Another nurse will be stopping by in half an hour to check on him, my shift is over in ten minutes. If anything happens, press the red button, and a nurse will be here shortly,” the doctor explains, when she realizes Bruce isn’t going to reply anything to her words. 

She goes on to show him the red button by Richard’s bed like Bruce hasn’t been in a thousand hospital rooms before. Only nodding to confirm he understands, he refrains from his want to tell her that he is more than familiar with the function. He can’t take more scrutinizing, out of words to defend himself with. 

The doctor studies him up and down again, her face tells him there’s something on the tip of her tongue she’s aching to say. After a brief second, she seems to decide against it, closing her lips into a thin line instead.

The nurse finishes up checking on Dick’s wounds and switches out a bloodied bandage as Bruce watches with hawkeyes. Plantagenet does a final check herself too, looking over Dick's vitals and the scar from the operation before the nurse reapplies the bandage. It all seems to be as expected. No worrying expressions are taking over her face, and there are no flickering eyes. Bruce feels his muscles unclench a little and some tension lets go in his shoulders. 

Both the nurse and the doctor nods their goodbye to Bruce and without another word, step out of the room. It leaves Bruce alone with his unconscious son, which feels scarier than it should, considering how many times it's happened before. 

Pondering over what the doctor might be thinking about him, what it was she had wanted to say, he lets himself fall down in the chair Bea had been occupying earlier. 

He reaches out and takes Dick’s hand in his own, much like Bea had, careful to mind the various tubes attached to his son through a needle. His eldest’s hand feels bony and thin in his palm, more so now than ever before. The knuckles still have a roughness to them though, from all the years of use both in training grounds and out in the field.

When Bruce inspects Dick's hand a little closer, the skin over his knuckles seems to be cracked too, unfamiliar scares barely healed, but too old to have been from the car crash. Seems like Ric not too long ago must have punched something or someone. That’s worrisome, an unpleasant feeling filling Bruce’s gut because that means that there are even more things that Bruce has missed. 

As much as he wishes he could get his questions answered right away, he knows he’ll have to wait to ask about that until Richard is further along with his recovery. He can’t take another big fight right now. Neither of them can. Still, he’ll need to know if Ric is going around fighting people sooner or later.

Bruce is aware Nightwing has been in the papers lately. Ric had told him to butt out of his life, not out of Nightwing’s, and Bruce had used that loophole for what it was worth. Though the articles were all about these new people parading around in Dick’s suits, both new and older models, and not actually about the real Nightwing. It was clear more than one person was pretending to be him, even the journalists had realized that. The same journalists had also very quickly figured that none of them were the original.

Bruce hadn’t found the time for Batman to stop by and talk to them yet. It's been in his planner for a while now. There’s a chance he might’ve pushed it further into the future on purpose, not that he would admit that to anyone else.

He already dislikes them for picking up the Nightwing mantle and using it as their own, just on pure principle. There’s no way Ric, memories or not, would have given them permission to do that. Ric himself had told him Nightwing died when that bullet hit his brain, and Bruce had seen what the inferno of fire had done to what was once Nightwing’s underground Blüdhaven base.

Ric had meant for Nightwing to disappear. These new Nightwings were actively working against Ric's wishes. 

Yet, that wasn’t the only reason Bruce had avoided these new Nightwings. Seeing them pictured in the papers with his son’s familiar insignia on their chests hurt more than Bruce wanted to admit. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel to see them in real life, standing in front of him, wearing costumes Dick had poured his heart into designing. For those people's own safety, even though they hardly deserved it, he’d refrained from finding them, unsure if he would be able to control his anger if he were to come face to face with them.

A new nurse arrives suddenly, the half-hour passing by none too quickly, and only because of all his training does he manage to keep from startling. They only nod at each other in greeting, and the nurse gives Bruce a small smile before he checks Richard’s vitals and jots something down in a journal before leaving again. He’s grateful there is no try for petty small talk, he doesn’t have the energy for that. Perhaps the nurse could see the exhaustion Bruce is sure must be showing in his face. 

Bruce almost wishes he had said something, anything, about Richard's condition though. He feels like he doesn’t know anything even though he probably knows all there is to know. Sitting still and waiting in silence has never been one of his strengths. 

When he can’t take it anymore he grabs the medical chart laying on the bedside table, and flips through it, almost hoping there will be something surprising.

Much to his disappointment, he had been correct in assuming there was little news for him inside of it, but it still gives him a little comfort to read the words for himself. The chart gives him nothing but a more specific time for Dick’s operation and when his arm and leg had gotten cast, which at least will be useful for the journal additions Bruce will be making to his own personal records.

The door opens again fifteen minutes later, filling the room with more energy and switching the quickly becoming stale air with something fresh. The new arrivals are much less graceful than the nurses when they enter. There are no light familiar steps of someone who has walked through a thousand times, resembling more a pack of horses, stumbling through, and it makes him look up from the journal.

It’s Damian, with Tim and Alfred hot on his heels. They all look pale, almost identical expressions of worry on their faces. Bruce would have laughed at the similarity if the situation was different. If he wasn’t still holding Richards limp hand in his, he would’ve commented on it. It’s not often it’s this clear how his family shares certain mannerisms. 

“Will Richard be alright?” Damian asks, already standing on the opposite side of Dick’s bed and ditching any greeting. His eyes are studying Richard, moving over his older brother's body, and checking out his injuries. They come to a stop on Dick’s relaxed but still pained face. 

“Yes, they hope so. He’s got a concussion but the doctors think he managed to avoid any further head trauma, and the rest will heal with time,” Bruce informs them, flipping the file in his hands shut, meeting Alfred’s inquisitive eyes.

“They think?” Tim asks, his voice growing slightly higher at the end, never one to be happy with uncertainties. He is already grabbing the medical chart Bruce had been reading seconds before out of Bruce’s lap and flipping it open. 

“These last few months we’ve all learned how complicated and complex head traumas can be. There’s no saying for sure until he wakes up,” Bruce explains, trying to keep his voice calm and comforting. Alfred comes to stand beside him, and Bruce watches as the butler puts a hand on Dick’s not-broken right leg and feels him lay the other one on Bruce’s shoulder. 

Bruce wonders if Alfred knows the comfort, the strength, the little gesture fills him with. Probably. Alfred knows everything, it seems. 

“When will he wake?” Damian questions, his brows furrowed like they do whenever he’s thinking too hard. Alfred says that it’s something he’s inherited from Bruce, but Bruce isn’t sure. Damian looks way too innocent while he does it to be mirroring Bruce. 

“They’ve started taking him off the hard meds now, he should be waking up soon, but slowly. It’s a waiting game,” Bruce says with a shrug and leans further back into the chair. Alfred’s hand slips away from his shoulder. 

Tim has fallen down in a chair by the window, the chart now discarded on a small table to his right. The teen is looking at his phone, perhaps googling something he has yet to learn about TBIs. He might also be updating the others about the situation. Either way, his fingers are moving over the touch screen much faster than Bruce could ever hope on managing himself.

Damian is still frowning at Richard’s face.

“Damian?” Bruce asks, to bring the boy out of his head and no doubt troubling thoughts. 

His youngest looks up at him, eyes wide and earnest. It’s a side of Damian he is seeing more and more, much of it chalked up to the amazing work Dick did with the boy. God, Bruce misses his eldest, misses how Dick was always willing to teach him the fine arts of understanding Damian. 

“He looks.. rested, more than before, even if in pain, it is almost.. ironic,” Damian answers, taking his time finding the right words. The kid never stops surprising him. How is Bruce supposed to answer that? Is there a right way to answer that? Dick does look more rested than he has any other time Bruce has seen him since the shooting, but his face is still too expressionless, many thanks to the drugs keeping his eldest asleep.

In the end, he settles for an agreeing hum, as he leans forward again to brush his thumb over Dick’s pale hand. Bruce doesn’t know if he imagines it or not, but it feels like Richard’s hand twitches under his. He doesn’t tell anyone and tries to conceal his reaction. He needs to be sure before voicing anything like that out loud, the doctors warning clear in his head. Damian is staring at him though when he looks up. Bruce fears his youngest might have noticed something, but if he did, Damian comments nothing on it. 

“I assume it will be a while before there is any more action here,” Alfred starts, and Bruce can see how the older man tears his eyes off the limp form in the bed. “Why don’t we find the cafeteria and get some food? It is way past dinner time, and it would do all our legs good to walk a little after that tension-filled drive.” Once again, Bruce's reminded of how lucky he is to have the older man in his life. In his family’s life. 

Surprisingly, none of the boys disagree. Bruce doesn’t even want to ask about the mentioned car ride, and what had or hadn’t been said. His boys have always been emotional ones, even if they without fail always try to hide it. He watches as they pile their jackets up in the chair Tim was sitting in seconds ago. Tim grabs the medical chart from the table again and slaps it down on the small bedside table on Bruce’s right where he picked it up. In a much quieter fashion than when they arrived, the two teens then follow Alfred out the door, leaving Bruce to the quiet only interrupted by the whirring and beeping of the machines helping Dick recover.

Bruce ends up fishing his phone out of his pocket when Richard goes too still and the sounds too eerie. He almost wishes one of the boys had stayed. The room looks so clean and pristine, almost too perfect. Once again his thoughts remind him how Dick will hate it when he wakes up, or at least how the old Dick would’ve. 

Deciding to do some damage control, he’s only sitting there doing nothing so he might as well, he opens his encrypted web browser. The accident's mentioned in a few of Blüdhaven’s local papers, but none of them seems to know who the man who got hurt is. It hasn't blown up in any way, accidents happen all the time, and Blüdhaven has too many other problems. The newest article about it is over a day old, the accident already forgotten in the eyes of the public.

Bruce is glad to see that no pictures are showing Richard’s face, or the accident as it happened. There are some pictures of the aftermath. One showing dried blood splatter, Dick’s blood, on the ground. Bruce finds it a grotesque picture to put online, especially in a newspaper, but he doesn’t think he’s going to do anything about it unless Dick’s identity is slipped out. 

There are also a few pictures of what Bruce assumes is the car that hit Dick, with an obvious dent in the hood of it. A dent Dick's unsuspecting body had made. Bruce can feel his anger flare up, together with the frightening thought about how close he came to losing his son for real. 

The paramedics had been quick to arrive at the scene, the article explains. The police had already been there and kept nosey civilians and journalists at bay. The drivers, who turn out to have been robbers trying to get away after a planned attack on the city bank, had been apprehended. 

Which again explains why the police had been there so fast. It went unspoken that there had been a car chase, with the police pulling up so quickly because they were already following the car. The BPD isn’t exactly known for its efficiency. 

Bruce finds that a part of him blames the cops for the accident, bitterness clouding his mind, even if he should know better. Strictly speaking, it was the criminals’ car who had hit Richard. Still, he finds it a reckless decision of the cops to chase the thieves through such a central part of Blüdhaven. Especially in the middle of the day. They must have known that civilians would be running around going about their day. Civilians like his own innocent son. 

Bruce knows that cases sometimes go sideways, perhaps better than anyone. Car chases are unpredictable if you aren’t fast enough to put up barriers to stop the getaway cars. He’s been in too many chases himself, both doing the chasing and been the one trying for a quick getaway. Sometimes accidents happen, sometimes there is nothing you can do. Yet, those cops should have known better.

Bruce's biggest problem with the whole thing is that Dick was only another civilian getting hurt. His son was supposed to be safe. The accident happened to him completely at random. Dick had just been unlucky, at the wrong place at the wrong time. As if the boy hadn’t already had enough bad luck to last a lifetime. It could have been anyone else, yet it was Richard. 

Bruce finds it’s a miracle that the idiots didn’t run down anyone else as he closes all the news tabs, to fed up with the world to continue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked this chapter!! also i feel like i should say i have no update schedule but a few more chapters already mostly typed out and ready to go
> 
> hit me up on tumblr @letgraysonsheart, kudos and comments are very much appreciated


	3. Stay the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce learns, once again, not to keep secrets. Bea comes back and gets to meet the whole family, it goes.. as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hello - im back with a new chapter! i didnt imagine it would take so long but well - life. Sorry for any spelling errors, but I really wanted to get this chapter out now as it's been sitting almost finished for so long. I hope you enjoy reading!

The door cracks open again, though this time a little bit more delicate than when his sons companioned by Alfred had arrived earlier. As the opening gets bigger Bruce can't keep from leaning forward to look, and he spots Barbara, quickly stepping into the room with controlled grace.

“Hi,” she greets him, and her voice sounds off, too emotionless. If he were to guess, he would say she’s working very hard to repress everything bubbling up under her skin right now. As he studies her, she walks over and stops on the opposite side of Dick’s bed, just where Damian had been standing earlier. 

“Hello,” Bruce replies then, remembering that it’s normal to greet people back, even if the current situation probably would excuse his rudeness. Trying to muster enough energy to give her a small smile when she moves her gaze over to him, he refrains from pumping his fist in restlessness. 

Something shifts in her eyes as he smiles at her, making him believe his effort must have at least given her some kind of comfort. After a brief second where he watches her collect herself, she smiles back at him, some of the tightness around her eyes disappearing. Bruce feels like it’s the first right step he has taken today.

“How is he?” she asks, and he can hear the slight shake to her voice. She is better at hiding her emotions when in the field then out of it. More often than not she chooses to use the voice modulator she’s integrated into her cowl, much like the one in Bruce’s, when doing vigilante related work. The mechanical filtered tone her voice takes on acts as an extra layer of security, and manages to hide a lot of what she’s feeling underneath. 

In the flesh, Bruce knows it’s harder for her, like it is for most of the people in their vigilante family. There are no masks between them, no electronics to obscurify their voices.

“The doctors are expecting a full recovery, physically. His arm and ribs will heal with time and physio. The head trauma they can’t say anything for sure about before he wakes up properly. Told me they think he managed to avoid worsening it though,” Bruce tells her, struggling not to grasp Dick’s hand even harder at the reminder of his son’s injuries. 

“That’s good,” she muses, biting her lip. He can see that her eyes are back to being glued on Dick, studying him intently, like he’s hiding something from her she can find by looking extra hard at him.

Bruce lets go of Dick’s hand and reaches over to grab the medical chart abandoned on the table. Barbara nods in thanks as he leans over the bed to hand it to her. He doesn’t miss how her hand is shaking, how it looks almost as pale as Dick’s bedsheets, as she grabs it. Barbara has always been one to feel calmed by cold hard facts, similar to Tim, so he hopes reading the chart will help her. 

“Wakes up for real?” she questions, balancing the chart on one arm, gripping the top with white fingertips. Without looking up at him she starts flipping through the papers full of trivial medical information, Bruce assumes she’s looking for the page containing descriptions of Dick’s injuries. Her glasses fall further down her nose as she bends her neck to read, and he watches as she pushes them back up with a light finger. 

“The doctor says he’s been, I’m not sure how to explain it correctly, perhaps.. slightly conscious? The nurse told me he’d mumbled words, but not been able to respond when they tried to communicate with him. He hasn't been able to make himself properly understood since he talked to an EMT at the scene,” clasping his hands together in his lap, Bruce tries to be cautious about how he explains Dick’s situation as Barbara continues reading, 

As the silence drags on, Bruce starts wondering if she was listening to what he was saying at all.

“What did he tell the EMT?” she finally breaks the silence, stopping her reading to look up at Bruce, proving him wrong in thinking she wasn’t paying attention. “What’s he said since he got here?” 

For a second Bruce contemplates lying, but then he remembers that it’s Barbara he’s talking to. She'll see right through him if he tries to keep something from her. Over the years she’s become almost too good at that, competing with Dick for the top spot in a game between the two of them, which he assumes is called something similar to “calling-Bruce-out-on-his-bullshit”.

"They said he-," Bruce has to stop his sentence to take a deep breath, pushing his emotions down into a little tight box and locking them away. Waiting for his answer, Barbara furrows her brows at him. "He asked for someone called B, and when the EMT called him buddy he’d said.. he’d said you know it’s chum, B,” he admits, putting a lot of weight on the last two words. 

A wave of emotions travels through Barbara’s face as the words hit her, and he waits while she reigns it into a natural expression again. 

“Oh,” she says, “so is that.. is that significant?” she locks eyes with him, not giving him any out besides answering. 

“I’m.. unsure. Ric has certainly never said anything like that to me, and chum was a special word I used for him, before," Bruce confesses. He can remember whispering it together with other strings of words now long forgotten the last time Dick had laid in bed like this. At one point he’d resorted to begging for Dick to just please, please, wake up. It had been in the middle of the night, when everyone else had either gone home or fallen asleep. 

The memories of those painful hours waiting to see if his eldest would survive seems like burned into his mind. Replaying constantly in his thoughts through the day, and then vividly relived in his nightmares at night, together with all his other sins. 

The gods had seemed to decide on both gifting Bruce and cursing him as they decided Dick’s fate, fitting with how they so often seem to enjoy playing with Bruce’s life. His son har survived, but Dick had woken up broken and confused, only asking for Mary and John and never once for Bruce.

“It was frequently used when he was younger. In the later years I would find myself using it mostly when he was more.. incoherent,” Bruce explains a little sheepish, there is no point holding back details, though he hopes his regret doesn’t seep into his voice. Releasing his hands, he lets one of them move and entrap Dick’s again. It’s probably more of a comfort to himself than his son, but Bruce still hopes that somehow Dick can feel him there.

“Like when he was drugged,” Barbara states more than asks. She's been in the business along with them for a very long time, and seen Dick go through so many horrible instances. Been there for the aftermath of them too. There’s been multiple situations where Dick has required drugs, either to keep the pain at bay or to just simply keep him in bed long enough to recover.

“Like when he was drugged,” Bruce repeats, as confirmation. Barbara seems to sink together a little at this new information, shoulders falling, her brain probably working overtime processing the new information. 

“So he’s asked for B, mentioned the word chum, a word you used for Dick in similar situations. Chum, a word which none of us has ever heard Ric mention since he first woke and you haven’t used with him since before all this," Barbara repeats, as if she is trying to force the words to sink in.

“He asked for B?”, a new voice says from the doorway, breaking into their moment. “He mentioned chum?” The voice is filled with clear confusion and pain, not painfully hidden or forced down. It’s meant to be heard, meant to hurt. 

Bruce curses himself for letting himself lose some of his awareness in the safety of the situation. When he looks over, Tim is standing in the doorway, his mouth hanging half open. Damian and Alfred are standing behind him, both rigid with thin lips. Bruce hadn’t even heard the door open, so lost in his own thoughts.

Bruce motions for them to enter with a low hand, and watches his family stiffly walk through the door, avoiding looking at him. Alfred closes the door behind himself as the last one in. Both of the boys go to stand on Barbara’s side of the bed, something too much like betrayal in their eyes.

One look at Alfred’s face and Bruce can see that the butler isn’t very happy either to have been kept out of the loop. At least the older man has positioned himself at the foot end of Dick's bed, on neither side. 

“You have to tell us, now, father,” Damian says. The coldness and detachment in his voice fills Bruce with regret, because he knows he had a hand in putting it there. It scares him, seeing and recognizing it in his youngest son, maybe especially so when it's directed at Bruce himself.

“The nurse said he mumbled it, at the scene and then after he got sent here, before any of us arrived,” Bruce answers, repeating the truth once again to his new audience.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Tim accuses, crossing his arms. Barbara reaches out a hand and puts it softly on Tim’s upper arm. Bruce can see how his posture softens a little, leaning into the touch. 

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. The doctor even warned me about it,” he explains, sitting up straighter in his chair. He can't slouch or look indifferent if they are to understand, can’t give them any more fuel to hit him with. They’re almost crowding him now, standing around in a circle and staring at him with various degrees of fury.

“But couldn’t that mean Richard is remembering again? He certainly would not have called you B or even remembered how you’d call him chum in his.. former state,” even Damian winces at his own choice of words. “Drugged or not, Ric did not see you as someone close to him,” Damian continues, like none of them knew that from before. Trying to ignore how much it stings in his heart over how nonchalant the boy manages to be while speaking about it, Bruce looks away, trying to simply will the heat spreading in his neck away. 

“While that’s true, this is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. You can’t get your hopes up. He might still..” Bruce’s voice trails off while he thinks of the right words to say. No one jumps in to save him from finding the wrong ones. “When he wakes up, he might still be Ric. Most likely, he’ll continue not remembering us. I don’t want him to wake up scared and confused, only to be met with disappointed faces,” Bruce tries to use the most no-nonsense batman-like voice he can without his cowl on.

The boys are still frowning at him, Tim’s even deeper than before, and Bruce thinks that adding the extra layer to his voice might not have been a good decision after all. Barbara’s eyes are on Dick, though Bruce can see she is wearing her thinking face. 

“While that is good reasoning Master Bruce, I fear I will have to agree with the boys and Miss Gordon. It would have been better if you had told us beforehand. We might've been able to avoid this exact situation,” Alfred, never one to hide his opinions but always managing to mask them in politeness, says. Both Tim and Damian nod along, for once agreeing on something. Bruce’s heart would’ve swelled at it, if they weren't doing it while ganging up on him. 

“I -” Bruce starts, an argument on the tip of his tongue. The narrowed looks both Barbara and Alfred send him before he gets anything out are so fierce that the words freezes on his tongue.

Taking a deep breath, he takes a second to ponder the situation, trying to find a better solution.

“You’re right,” he ends up admitting. “This was not how I wanted to tell you.” It seems to satisfy his spectators some. They've shown a surprising amount of patience with him, given him time as he struggles to find out what to say, he'll give them that. 

He doesn’t doubt that there will be a conversation with Alfred later, once the kids are out of earshot. The two of them have always been good at keeping a united front for them, but behind closed doors Alfred isn't afraid to tell Bruce where he’s gone wrong. 

More often than not, Bruce ends up figuring out Alfred was right all along. It’s one of the reasons it amuses him when people call him the world's greatest detective- they have no idea of the master mind that is Alfred Pennyworth. 

“Were you ever going to tell us?” Tim asks accusingly, not ready to let the subject go even as Damian walks over and sits himself down in the chair by the window. At least the youngest of the two seems to be done with the problem, for now. 

Bruce is saved from answering when the doors open yet again and a nurse steps in. It’s the same who came to check on Richard earlier, older than the first he met but still quite young. He seems surprised by the sudden amount of people occupying the room, as last time it had only been Bruce sitting by Dick's bedside.

“I’m here to check up on Richard’s vitals and change his IV bag, is this a bad time?” he asks, looking at Bruce, no doubt reading the weird vibe of the room. He must be sensing that he just walked into some kind of argument. 

“No, excuse us, please do what you came here for. We are all family of Richard, we were just... discussing something,” Alfred takes charge and says. Bruce knows it should be him answering, and he can’t help but feel a little shitty for laying the responsibility of being the mature adult on Alfred’s shoulders. 

The nurse smiles, though it looks a little unsure around the corners, and goes to do his job. Barbara steps a little further away from the bed to give the nurse room to work. Bruce lets go of Dick’s hand which he has been holding onto through the discussion with his family, drying the sweat off his palm on his thigh. Tim leaves Barbara’s side completely and goes to stand besides where Damian is sitting, sure to be out of the way too. 

They’re all too familiar with how a hospital works, Bruce thinks, as guilt wallows up in him.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but visiting hours are over in about two hours, at nine. We do usually allow one or two people in close relation to stay after that in situations like this though,” the nurse tells them as he works.

“Situations like what?” Damian hisses, now not holding back any of the emotions in his words. Bruce’s youngest sounds both worried and angry, and it makes the nurse freeze in his actions, looking up at the boy like he’a a feral animal. It’s hard to read Damian when you don’t know him, when you can’t see the fear that is hidden in his furiosity. 

“Damian...,” Barbara says because apparently, Bruce has grown incapable of being an adult these last hours. Thankfully the nurse takes it like a champ. Bruce realises he may be used to handling situations like this, where the family of patients acts hostile. Probably comes with the job, and god does Bruce not envy them that. 

“The patient has yet to wake up completely, which I’m sure you already know. It’s usually best for the patient to wake up with someone he knows around him, or at least close by, in a situation like this. It can be quite scary,” the nurse explains, voice calm. 

Bruce can see Damian’s mouth open to answer, and Bruce fears for what’s about to come. Maybe something crude about Richard’s memory trouble, or about how the nurse is talking to him like he’s a child. Damian hates being forced to act like the child he is, and he dislikes even more when people treat him like one. 

Thankfully, Bruce can see that Tim is already grabbing the younger boy's arm and squeezing it as a warning. Bruce manages to catch his youngest Damian’s eye too, and gives him a look he hopes conveys to the boy that he has to stand down; now. 

The nurse doesn’t need to hear it, is only doing his job, a job which is keeping Dick alive. 

In an amazing turn of events, Damian does hold his words to himself. His little mouth snaps shut into a quiet snarl, which the nurse thankfully ignores. Bruce can acknowledge that the boy has come a long way, even if he still has some yet to go. Not that long ago Damian wouldn’t have backed down so easily. 

Losing an argument back with the league would’ve been something worthy of cruel punishment, and Damian has yet to break some of the unhealthy ways of thinking they forced on him.

Bruce assumes the current situation is having a lot of impact on his youngest too, even if Damian’s refusing to show it, and that has some effect on Damian keeping to himself too.

Giving Damian a last, lighter squeeze, Bruce sees Tim let go of the younger's arm. Comfort, Bruce thinks, feeling proud of the older of the two. Damian only continues his silence, which is a win in itself. Bruce tries to catch Tim’s eyes, to at least convey some gratitude, but the older is refusing to look at him. 

“Someone can stay all through the night?” Bruce asks the nurse, not ready to tackle Tim yet, and forcing himself to step up into the position as responsible adult and father. It sounds almost too good to be true. Over the years there have been too many times where he’s been kicked out of his children's hospital rooms. All for various stupid reasons. 

It's not like they ever managed to keep him out of there, though. He is Batman after all. 

The nurse nods and smiles as he finishes up with the IV. “Yes, all through the night. As I said, it’s only for one or two of a near relation. So if anyone wishes to stay, our only rule is that the volume is kept down, unless something happens with the patient of course. Also, no excessive wandering the halls,” he explains, ending it with a small smile. 

The fact that Bruce doesn’t have to go all Batman and sneak his way into Dick’s room after dark lifts some heavy weight off his shoulders. It's such a hassle. He doesn't even know if he has an updated spare batsuit with him. 

Bruce Wayne climbing up the outside walls of a hospital, breaking into it, well - wouldn’t that be something for the papers. He can almost imagine the furious call from the PR team at Wayne Enterprises he would be on the receiving end of.

As Bruce watches the nurse takes a look at the bandage covering Dick's surgical wound, a little red but not alarmingly so, and checks Dick’s vitals once more. Bruce already knows they’re as expected, as he’s kept his eyes on it all the while he’s been sitting there. Almost more of a habit than a want or need by now. 

“Perhaps we should get you all some more chairs if you’re staying for the last two hours of visitation?” the nurse suggests, now smiling at Alfred who is still standing by the end of Dick's bed, leaning his hands against the railing. Crap. Bruce is awful. He should have offered the older man his own chair. There are only two chairs in the room, the one Bruce is sitting in and the one Damian is occupying. Alfred has been standing since he got here, and so has Barbara for the matter. 

“That would be wonderful,” Alfred says, with a polite smile at the nurse. The older man makes a sign for the boys to follow him, and Bruce stands up to do so too. That is the least he can do.

“No, Master Bruce, it’s quite alright,” the man says, waving his hands in a dismissive manner when he sees Bruce start to get up. “Sit with Richard. Tim and I will fetch the chairs,” he commands before Bruce is even completely out of the chair. Bruce finds himself, not for the first time, wondering if Alfred can read minds. 

His pseudo-father squeezes his shoulder in comfort as Bruce falls down in the chair again, and Bruce watches Alfred and Tim follow the nurse out, the door closing with a firm click behind them. Barbara steps closer to Dick’s side again as Bruce feels a little lighter knowing Alfred has forgiven him for keeping secrets about Ric. 

Not even a minute later Alfred and Tim arrive back, sans the nurse. They're carrying actual pillowed chairs, not at all like the plastic monstrosity Bruce himself is sitting on. Thinking back, he recalls seeing them in the waiting area further down the hall, by the elevator, when he arrived. 

Tim hands one of the two chairs he’s carrying to Barbara before putting his own down by the window, almost at Damian’s side. There seems to have been some kind of truce formed between the two of them by the situation, which Bruce is happy to see. 

Alfred sits himself down by Bruce’s side, who scoots his chair a little further up towards Dick’s head to make room. Now they just wait.

-

There are fifteen minutes left until visitation is over and they have yet to decide who gets to stay the night.

When Bruce brings it up, having dreaded it and pushed it away as long as possible, he’s met with a chorus of “I am!” coming from both Tim, Damian and Barbara. Bruce is sure that Alfred wants nothing more than to stay too, but the older man knows Bruce relies on him to take the ones who can’t stay home. Someone needs to watch the home base, and someone needs to look over the birds who'll have to go on patrol tonight. 

Batman is taking the night off to sit with his son, there is no argument about that. Bruce shudders as he imagines Alfred’s fury if he were to suggest something else.

It doesn’t make it any easier that Bea walks through the door to Dick’s room only a moment later. Some of her earlier confidence seems to fall away as she comes face to face with her boyfriend’s family. Maybe intimidated by the unexpected number of people in the room, Bruce thinks. Her face looks guarded, but her eyes soften as they land on Dick.

“Hi,” she starts, and a smile that looks very much forced forms on her face as the door shuts behind her. Clutching the strap on her bag with one of her hands so hard knuckles have already turned white, she stares at them.

From behind Barbara, Bruce can see Damian, still sitting by the window, scowl at the newcomer. Tim on the other hand is only looking at her with curiosity, no distrust or venom, not any that’s visible anyway. 

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. I’m Alfred Pennyworth, Master Wayne’s butler,” Alfred introduces himself while getting up off his chair, breaking the awkward silence that has fallen over the room. Once again Alfred saves Bruce from making a fool of himself showing how hopeless he is as an adult.

Bea’s smile looks uncertain, but she shakes the hand Alfred reaches out nonetheless. 

“Bea,” she says, “I’m Ric’s uhm.. girlfriend, I guess.” The room falls deadly quiet, more so before. Even Alfred looks surprised. “It’s weird to meet you all like this,” she continues, on the verge of rambling, when Damian still scowls and Barbara keeps staring at her under narrowed eyebrows. 

Tim has the tact to put his hand up in a small wave, “Timothy Drake, people just call me Tim though,” he says, grabbing Bea’s attention. “The brat beside me is Damian,” Tim gestures with his thumb at Damian, and Bae tries to smile at the youngest boy. Damian’s lips all but disappear in a thin line, and the boy responds nothing. “We’re Dick’s brothers,” Tim finishes, Bea nodding along, though Bruce can see a slight reaction as Tim mentions Dick’s name. 

“That’s Barbara,” Tim then says, when no one else seems to be willing to say anything and points at the redhead by Dicks bed. Bea’s facial expression changes completely once she hears Barbara’s name. Bruce can see something akin to anger flicker in her eyes.

“Oh,” she whispers, pulling a grimace Bruce suspects may be a try at masking her first reaction. Ric must have told her something about the only other woman in the room, Bruce thinks, and it seems it wasn’t only positive.

“I talked with a nurse earlier, she said two people could stay with Dick tonight. That’s why I came back, so I could make it,” Bea explains in a brave attempt to fill the suffocating silence. She had indeed promised to be back, Bruce recalls, when she had left earlier. 

Barbara’s face falls into a scowl matching Damian’s, and their reaction makes Tim sigh audible from his chair. 

“We were just discussing who would stay,” Bruce says, mostly because Alfred is giving him a very pointed look which he probably wouldn’t survive if he let go ignored. 

“Wouldn’t it make sense for his family to stay?” Barbara reasons, her voice cold and she’s staring at Bruce, who finds himself agreeing with a nod. Then again so does Damian and Tim, everyone picturing themselves as the family Barbara is mentioning. 

“I’m staying, obviously,” Bruce states, and no one dares to argue with him, thank god. “Someone needs to go back home and.. feed Titus, though,” he continues, not feeling particularly proud of the save. Tim has the audacity to lift one of his eyebrows at him in a mocking manner, a small smile on the teen's face. It's nice to see that not everyone is gearing up for the oncoming conflict. 

At the same time, it reminds Bruce so much of Dick, the old Dick, that it hurts in his whole being. Tim has no idea how many mannerisms he shares with his big brother.

When Bruce let his eyes fall on Bea again, she's looking back and forth between the occupants of the room, nose scrunched. She’s biting her lip, looking like she is debating what to do, what to say. She is brave, Bruce finds, still standing her own ground in the first meeting with Dick’s family.

A family who all happen to be made up of people with very strong personalities, and a lot of muscles. 

“I know Dick the best out of all of us,” Barbara argues. Having already started moving to gather their stuff, it seems that both Tim and Damian have realised they won’t be staying. Bruce doesn’t doubt both of them are thinking about patrol, and how Gotham will be left unsupervised if none of the bats were to show their faces tonight.

Jason is probably going out, especially since he’ll be assuming Bruce wont, Bruce’s brain reminds him, but there’s no knowing when or where. 

“I - I don’t mean to come off as rude but... He’s not Dick. He isn’t this person you’re all missing. At least he hasn't been lately. You guys don’t know him, you're.. you're not really his family anymore.” She gives a pointed look at Barbara before continuing, “and you’re his ex-girlfriend. I wouldn’t exactly call that family.” Bea moves closer to the bed, closer to Ric, watching the other female in the room with vary eyes. 

Ouch. 

Her words sting with the truth. Bruce represses the urge to argue that Dick is part of the family, no matter which memories he has, but he knows there is no point. A look at Barbara tells Bruce the words sting her even more, the before very strong looking front of hers now showing big cracks. 

“I think I should stay. He’s been more comfortable with me than any of you these last few months. When he wakes up he... He shouldn’t be in a room full of strangers,” Bea is growing more confident as she talks. She thinks she is in the right, Bruce can hear it. Actually, she seems to completely believe she is. 

It doesn't take long for Bruce to realize she’s right too, even if he wishes he could argue for Barbara to stay. He wants nothing more than to support an ally he has known for so long, someone he trusts so much compared to Bea, but he has to think about Dick. He has to be logical. 

Barbara’s face is turning red, and Bruce finds himself worrying about the blow-out this has the potential to turn into. He doesn’t need them all getting kicked out, and if it came to it - the hospital would want Bea here over the rest of them. She was the one who declared him missing, who realised something had happened to him. 

Bea is the only one they know for sure Ric actually trusted when the accident happened. Bruce could perhaps persuade them to let him stay if they wanted to kick the rest out, but only because Dick has been asking about B and that’s most definitely him. Still that’s a too uncertain risk for him to take.

“Barbara, I’m sorry. Bea is right," Bruce starts, watching Barbara turn and give him such a murderous glare he almost startles. If he wasn't Batman, or if he didn’t know Barbara like he does, maybe he would’ve been afraid. When he glances at his kids Damian, who’s now standing by the door with Tim, looks surprised by his words. Tim on the other hand doesn’t, probably saw this coming before anyone else.

"We have to think about what’s best for Richard. It’s the most logical thing to have both someone from his past and his newfound reality here,” Bruce tries to explain. He’s sure to maintain eye contact with the redhead through it all. He wants to convey to her that his arguments aren't to spite or betray her. He really is just thinking about Richard. Barbara has always been one to listen to reason before, and he hopes she manages to do so now too. 

Barbara slams her mouth shuts and looks at Bruce, eyes still filled with betrayal. Bruce is almost used to that by now, he is always messing up with these kids somehow, and today has really been no exception. 

This time though, compared to the others, he knows he is in the right. He has to be, his brain is too wired and logical for him not to be. 

“Perhaps you should stay together with me and Damian tonight, Barbara,” Tim suggests, “Bruce will call us if anything happens, we’ll be the first to know.” Bless Tim, with his kind-hearted soul and logical brain. Plus, Tim taking his side, even while still angry about Bruce keeping secrets, makes Bruce even more sure he's doing the right thing. He can stand in this. 

Barbara doesn’t say anything but, after a very uncomfortable silence, does nod her head. Some stray red locks of hair fall from where they’re tucked behind her ear, hanging in front of her face and hiding her eyes. Instead of pushing them away she reaches over and squeezes Dick’s upper arm, motion careful but firm, before getting up from her chair, drawing it further away from the bed.

When Tim goes over and reaches out to take her arm, she twists away from the movement, taking a step away from him. Still furious then. When Bruce dares to look over at Bea, he can see her watching Barbara’s every move like a hawk. The girl looks ready to argue, to fight for her place, if Barbara is to start something. 

Barbara doesn’t. Batgirl always knows when she’s lost, when to retreat. She can’t argue her way to stay the night without being unreasonable, and Barbara is everything but. Bea has both Bruce and Tim on her side, and Alfred won’t argue against them. The only one left then is Damian, and the two of them can’t convince the other three. 

So the four of them end up leaving just as the clock hits 9:15, Barbara trailing behind with an almost mournful glance back at Dick. Bruce can imagine the stink eyes they must be getting from the nurses as they walk the halls, considering they’re on overtime. He’s surprised no one came in to yell at them earlier, but perhaps the earlier nurse had warned the others about the tenseness of the room. 

As soon as the others are out of sight, Bea walks over to the same side Barbara had been occupying earlier. She drapes her coat over the back of the abandoned chair before collapsing down into it, looking as tired as Bruec feels.

So as the night begins to fall it’s just Bruce, Bea, his unconscious son, three empty chairs and unbearable silence only interrupted by mechanical beeping left in Dick’s room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i appreciate any and all kudos and comments, and you can still find my on tumblr @letgraysonsheart

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is letgraysonsheart if you want to come yell at me


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